if u check wing09's game logs, over 3/4s of his games done/undone include playing with his "friends"

gamer id:
yeunghauyip: 2962
wing09: 3262
roger941994: 3544

matagaming is bad but if its just friends who often play int he same game, well thats ok i think.

yeah - harder to judge that one i think!! I mean you get to know people online through playing with them in previous games... which can have an impact on future games.

It's not ideal as you'd like to think every new game starts afresh with everyone open to everyone else's ideas... but it's just not always human nature.

I'm with Chairman - even if it's within the rules, I wouldn't play with them. Well, maybe one at a time.

Of course it's impossible to avoid being influenced by past decisions, but we should still strive to enter new games with a new slate. Just because something is impossible to fully achieve, doesn't mean the pursuit of it's minimization isn't worthy.

Sean, you describe exactly what metagaming is... and it's bad...

its not hard to find that in those games they play together 50% +, they have let each other out throughout...never taking what should be taken, even at late stages fighting to win....

metagaming is people who often play with friends!?
i think people who play with friends should be very aware not to ally with their friends too much (well as much as they ally with strangers is ok) and to play with new people as much as possible. but we cant stop friends joining together and i dont think we want to do that would we?? there are a few bad apples thats but password games - and posting the password here- should cut down on this.

1. Meta-gaming is using any factors outside the current game to influence your strategy.

2. How does adding a password to a game and posting the password here reduce multi-accounting.

3. "but we cant stop friends joining together and i dont think we want to do that would we". This is meta-gaming. In my opinion friends should not be allowed to play together in non-private games, as they can communicate more easily, and trust each other more readily. However, when they have just joined this should be acceptable in a special "newbie" marked game.

1. Yes
2. in general meta-gamers are less observant? Passwords here are mainly so that players don't join the game by mistake, especially if it has a theme
3.I disagree. If you play with no bias once you are in a game, it does not matter where the other players are from.

Just to add, in http://phpdiplomacy.net/board.php?gid=2766 the two of them have also appeared, and are allied. Not that this is against the rules, but it is another game that could show a trend

2. I don't think we are assuming meta-gamers are stupid...

3. I don't think is it possible to play with no bias against your friends. You will know them better and be able to guess their moves. You also have communication advantages

Just to add. What are the rules? Is there a rule against multi-accounting? I wasn't aware of one.

One person with different accounts playing in the same game is multi-accounting. This is cheating.
Two or more friends that, more or less, join together and play together all of the time is not cheating. I do not think that face-to-face alliances are any less valid than online ones. To me, there is no difference.

I agree with mapleleaf. Friends sure might help out eachother, but its the same as any alliance, If anything backstabbing a rl friend would be more satisfying and easier than backstabbing a play who you dont know. So friends isnt meta-gaming.

If they are always allying with each other because they are friends and not because of their in game situation, that is wrong.

I hear you, Hyper...but I think that these players, if recognized in future games are more predictable and, therefore, easier to beat. I think it's wrong too, though.

"So friends isnt meta-gaming." Yes it is. Meta-gaming is using any factors outside the current game to influence your strategy. Freinds clearly are. However, meta-gaming is not necessarily evil. It is possible to play fairly with friends whilst meta-gaming, it is just not ideal.

I personally don't have an issue with metagaming unless the players who know each other are actually seeing each other's moves. Surely this is the same as multi accounting as players know exactly what they are doing, and have a 100% trust.
If players know each other and ally, then surely this is just as good an alliance as one that can be formed online- If you didn't know that they lived together, and that they knew each other, then you wouldn't be complaining.
So it would simply appear that people who complain about metagaming are simply complaining that they aren't having a fair bite at the apple. Surely you have the same opportunity as anyone else to create an alliance. Better still, turning two friends on each other- this shows the highest diplomatic ability of all in my opinion.
To summarise, try viewing meta-gaming as a challenge to overcome the odds, and prove yourself on the stage of Europe :-)

Can't deny their good teamwork though... looks like its one person playing. It's hard for 3 people to NEVER have clashes...

Not that that means I'm on any side...

oh do shut up.
This is a very trivial matter: If you ever see yeunghauyip or his alleged multi-accounts don't join the game.
Why do we need such a long thread discussing about friends playing in games?

So basically meta-gaming is fine, but multi-accounting is not

If you don't care don't talk in it Gobbledydook!

And its not that simple - one game I'm in for example I joined before they did, but that doesn't stop them being in my game, and until there is a leave game option I can't do anything about it. Still, that's life

Soo...."using any factors outside the current game to influence your strategy." Huh....its called life...another thread is to read books good for Dip. Same thing, is that meta-gaming? So i have played in games with people that i know..its not that big a deal. Its just the same, you can ally or not. Backstab or not, just because you know someone doesnt mean that the game is thrown...talking to someone in the chat is essentially the same thing as talking to someone in rl. Just cuz you know someone doesnt mean you wont take a chance and backstab...if you see that then either they are really trusting or its the same person.

FACTORS, he said.

I quote from a 2004 Washington Post article about diplomacy called "World Domination: the Game"

Of a best-backstabber award that a ftf diplomacy society awards annually:
"the person who pulls off the weekend's best back-stab will receive the Golden Blade. "It's a good award to have, but you win too many of them and people start to wonder about you," Satan says."

Of one of the players in the tournament this article centers on:
"Hood, who is Turkey, first sounds out his immediate neighbors on the board -- Italy, Austria and Russia -- and tries to put them at ease. The Diplomacy circuit has its own balance of power, and Hood's national reputation and trophy collection make him a prime target for a preemptive attack."

So... this is metagaming. Should these players, who I might add are probably several times better than any of us, be reprimanded for their obvious "metagaming?" I actually argue that "metagaming" should not even be discouraged, it is simply part of the game of diplomacy, and a fun game at that.

The article is at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38110-2004Nov9_2.html

shad, that may be the case for you, and for me, and for most well-rounded diplomacy players on this site. But we have had loads of examples of friends, classmates and family members who sign up to the same games, always ally, and never stab each other (at least not until they are the only ones left). If they are playing from the same computer lab, it's a good bet they're at screens next to each other while they're inputting their moves, and chatting to each other.

Like you say, it would be fine if they treated their mates exactly the same as any other player. But human nature and our experience here says they very rarely do!

And it's "using any factors outside the current game to inform your strategy with regard to a particular player" if you want to be picky! Information and attitudes you use indiscriminately do not come under metagaming because they do not give any one player a specific advantage or disadvantage.

I've suggested elsewhere that the points system and giving players rankings, even knowing how many games they have won, could strictly speaking promote metagaming. Newbies and high rollers are vulnerable to targeting, that's a specific disadvantage due to nothing they've done in the present game. But I wouldn't advocate the scrapping of the system for that reason, I don't think that kind of metagaming is so bad. High rollers should be capable of looking after themselves, and newbies need to learn what the game is all about! Plus we all want to compete and compare ourselves and strive to be the best.

we are friend, so why we can't play diplomacy together?
you also asked your frd to join the game which u have joined

I see what you mean Noodle..i guess i just overestimated people. Nice to have someone who isnt being mean to me about it tho. Lol. =]

I believe that the problem with metagaming is that there is an undeclared team. The reason why these players team is not the primary factor; what matters is that they come to the game with plans to ally even before they know which countries they draw.

Ironically, I find that this sometimes goes against the meta-gamers because their alliance ends up being opposed to their natural interests...

This is best seen in face to face games where the play is fast and the pressure is enough to force errors. Metagamers end up making moves/decisions based on their original pact and not on the actual situation as it unfolds. This only has to catch them out once and a whole position can be lost.

Overall, I believe very strongly that we should wipe the slate clean for each game. I have to admit though that there are some players whom I just cannot rely on: their track record is too difficult to ignore.

No, I think there is something to be said for building up trust from game to game because you honored pacts, agreements, and alliances even when it may not have benefitted you to the maximum, so that you may later expect to be on the recieving end.

Chairman Mao (11)(you) and flashman (170) also are friend plz keep an eye on them
http://www.phpdiplomacy.net/board.php?gid=2324#map

i agree with thucydides in that one can build trust within the community. Your decisions in each game are based on whats on the board and the players. some players you know and trust, others have shown themselves in previous game to be fast and loose with their promises. To not take that in to account would be stupid. However to ignore a stranger's offer of a mutually beneficial alliance and instead support a (known in real life) friend in a situation when not at all useful for yourself would also be stupid.
strangers should be treated equally.

chairman mao and flashman friends? i dont think so

well they do backstab each other

longson- you have never been in any game with either mao or flash.
odd claim to make then.

I don't know really- I work a lot with Yeunghauyip etc, and we've had very good past cooperation between both of us. I tend to remember good teamwork and if a player is a reliable ally in sticky situations then I tend to approach him in games.

For example, in the game Political Puppets 2, Austria and Italy were CD, and we both happened to join late. We overwhelmed Turkey, then Russia, and then turned on France to achieve a 3- way draw at 17-10-7. Great teamwork and calculating- so I like working with him.

Meta gaming? With him I reckon he's a very staunch ally that's all.

As for Roger19... I don't know much about him. He's very cooperative though, and quite talkative to me

in this two games Chairman Mao is using italy, but his move is different way because of flashman ,his frd,
http://www.phpdiplomacy.net/board.php?gid=2020#map
(flashman is Aus)
and
http://www.phpdiplomacy.net/board.php?gid=2324#map
(flashman is Ger)

Chairman Mao! u post this for u are losing thhe game! am i right?
i know u! you are studying in DBS in hong Kong! am i right?
u also have frd in this web site. in this web site all the member/player have frds! why they can't have frd in the game?

and not roger1994 is roger941994

roger is also studying in DBS u two are schoolmate

longson

Glad to see you study my games. Three points though...

a) in one of the two games you mention, 2324, I went neck and neck with Chairman before closing the win.

b) in the other, 2020, I helped Meer to do battle against Chairman.

c) I know Chairman in real life, very well indeed. But in Dip games we decide on a case by case basis whether we support each other or not.

flashman! how u can't support Meer

Your statement does not compute.

Syntax error.

Please re-submit.

[this message has been prepared with the help of a HAL 3000]